Harry Clarke

The Tax Review report on the retirement income system  recommends retaining a means-tested Age Pension, retaining compulsory savings for retirement at 9% and allowing (!) voluntary savings for retirement.  It  however recommends  increasing the age of eligibility for the ‘Age Pension’ pension to 67 years and moving the age of eligibility for superannuation (the ‘preservation [...]

Malcolm Turnbull’s budget response was very political.  The main practical point was to emphasise retaining the health insurance subsidy and substitute a 3 cent extra tax per cigarette to raise the same income.  This is probably sensible in my view but small potatoes.  Otherwise the attack was primarily on the size of the $57 billion deficit [...]

This Budget is based on forecasts that unemployment would have grown  considerably without future strong fiscal stimuli but that the economy will, in fact, turn around rapidly in 2011 and then grow at 4.5%.   The debt that does stem from the Budget is significant but not overwhelming and probably unavoidable if one accepts the budget [...]